


Shaking Hands

by ShenanigansEnsue



Series: Elizabeth "Doc" O'Neil [2]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26226976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShenanigansEnsue/pseuds/ShenanigansEnsue
Summary: While on an away mission Doc is shot and brought back to camp and Hawkeye must confront his true feelings.
Relationships: Hawkeye Pierce/Elizabeth "Doc" O'Neil, Hawkeye Pierce/OC
Series: Elizabeth "Doc" O'Neil [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1611625
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	Shaking Hands

**Author's Note:**

> I may or may not expand on this and develop it into a full episode. Let me know what you think!

“Hawkeye?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you hear me?”

Hawkeye looked up from his plate of gruel to find B.J. looking at him expectantly. 

“Yeah, of course,” he said, the distraction in his voice clear even to his ears. 

“So, you think it’s a good idea?”

“Sure, sounds great.”

B.J. smiled. “Fantastic. You’ll be officer of the day for the next month and Winchester will be promoted to Chief surgeon.”

Hawkeye choked on his coffee, spitting out in a spray and coughing out the rest. 

B.J. slapped him on the back for support until he caught his breath. 

“Head in the clouds?” 

“Yeah, I guess you can say that,” Hawkeye wheezed. 

His friend gave him a sympathetic look. “They’re fine Hawke. Potter already got word that they’re already on their way back.”

Hawkeye nodded, but it did nothing to ease the knot in his stomach. He always got that knot whenever Doc decided to be heroic. In this particular case, another hospital was in desperate need of an extra pair of hands. Both Margaret and Doc had volunteered and Potter, for some ungodly reason, had decided that was a good idea. 

He knew, logically, she wasn’t in any more danger there than she was in the 4077th, but it still ached at him. At least Margaret was with her. If he could trust anyone to keep Doc from being too heroic, it was Margaret. 

“Can’t be back soon enough,” Charles said, taking a seat at their table. “I never thought I’d say this, but I prefer you talking over…” He vaguely waved a hand in Hawkeye’s direction. 

The other man raised an eyebrow. “Oh, and what’s…” He copied his gesture. 

“General moping, worry lines, snappy followed by silence,” B.J. listed. “If Doc is gone any longer your hair is going to go white.” 

Hawkeye let out a huff. “It’s not that bad.” 

B.J. and Charles gave each other a look, which was never a good sign. If they agreed on anything something was very, very wrong. 

“It’s not that bad,” he insisted. “I worry. Is it a crime to worry?”

“Not at all. I just hope my wife worries about me the same way,” B.J. said. 

Hawkeye opened his mouth to say something devastating when the rumble of a car engine came roaring through camp. 

“Speak of the devil,” B.J. said. 

Hawkeye immediately felt the pressure in his chest lighten, but something else gnawed at his stomach. Why would they be rushing back to camp? Wouldn’t Doc or Margaret drop the other at their tent before reporting to Potter? Something wasn’t right. 

The car horn honked from the direction of O.R. 

“Medic!” Margaret’s voice pierced through the camp. “I’ve got wounded!”

Hawkeye was up a flash followed closely by B.J., Charles and the rest of camp. 

_Everything is fine_ , he tried telling himself as his legs found new speed. _Liz is just in the back prepping the wounded for surgery, that’s why you didn’t hear her voice. She’s fine. She’s going to be fine._

Hawkeye came into view of the jeep. Margaret was already out, checking the wounds of someone in the back. He couldn’t get a clear view, but it was obvious even at this distance that whoever was in the bed of the jeep was too tall and not in uniform. He felt a twinge of shame at the relief that washed over him. Not Liz. 

He kept running, keeping his attention on the civilian. Doc was probably just inside the O.R. getting prepped. He had a job to do. He just needed to focus. 

But all hope of that was lost the second he saw the body in the back seat. 

Liz lay on her back, her head propped on the car door, eyes closed and a pool of blood staining her stomach. 

He went numb. He couldn’t move. The shouting and orders became muffled and indistinguishable. 

Without his input, his legs started moving forward again. He yanked the door of the jeep open with such force the whole thing shook.

Liz’s eyes peered open at the disturbance. “Hawkeye?”

Her voice was so weak, his heart clenched. 

He jumped into the back, taking her into his arms as carefully as he could. 

“I’m here. I’ve got you Liz. You’re going to be fine.” He turned his head to O.R. “I need a stretcher!” 

On reflex, his mind started working through the problem. She had been hit somewhere in the lower intestines. Single entry. No signs of an exit wound. 

He was only vaguely aware of the crowd now surrounding the vehicle. 

“Oh my God,” B.J. said, in horror. “What happened?”

“Snipers,” Margaret answered swiftly. “We got ambushed on the road back. One of the civilians was hit. We got him into the jeep, but Doctor O’Neil was hit while trying to stabilize him.” 

Two of the enlisted men pulled the civilian out of the back and ran him inside just as Klinger came running out with a stretcher. 

Hawkeye pulled himself out of the back, Liz still in his arms. She had always been small, but he had never thought of her as fragile until this exact moment. Her face was so pale she looked like a porcelain doll. How could she break so easily?

She let out a moan of pain, causing the knife lodged in his heart to twist. 

“It’s alright Liz,” he tried to assure. “I’m going to fix it. You’re going to be fine.”

“Holy Christ, Doc,” Klinger cursed, as Hawkeye laid her down. 

“Hunnicutt, Winchester, get prepped,” Potter ordered. “Houlihan, get yourself looked at. Pierce, you stay here.”

His eyes snapped to Potter. “What?”

Potter looked at him with sympathetic eyes. “You’re shaking, son.”

Hawkeye looked down. He was shaking. His whole body was a live wire and his hands were covered in blood. 

Liz’s blood. 

Liz was shot and bleeding and he was just standing there, shaking. 

He started forward. “I need to get prepped.”

“No you don’t.”

Hawkeye shook his head. “She’s dying. I’ve got to fix it.”

“Hunnicutt is going to look after her,” Potter insisted. “You’re in no condition to do anything.”

“The hell I am.” 

Hawkeye continued forward, but Potter physically blocked his path. 

“Pierce, don’t make me call the MPs.”

“You’re not keeping me out of there!”

“Would you trust O’Neil with those hands?!”

Hawkeye looked down again. He was still shaking. Why couldn’t he stop shaking? He clasped them together, willing them to stop. 

“I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.”

“She doesn’t have a minute.” 

He wanted to scream. He wanted to curse and argue and punch Potter right in the jaw. But even as his throat muscles tightened to let it all come barreling out, the rest of his body betrayed him. His limbs were heavy. His insides aches and warm streaks of tears poured down his cheeks. When had he started crying? 

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Glancing down, he was met by Potter’s steady gaze. 

“She’s going to be alright,” the older man promised. “She’s got some of the best doctors in the war looking after her.” 

Hawkeye nodded, not trusting his voice. 

Potter squeezed his shoulder on last time before letting go. “Get yourself cleaned up son. I’ll come get you when we’re done.” 

He started to walk away. 

“O negative,” Hawkeye said. 

Potter turned. 

“Her blood type is O negative,” he repeated, almost like he was reciting it from a textbook. “She can only take O negative blood. The bullet hit her rectus abdominis. I didn’t feel an exit wound. So, the bullet is probably lodged in her large intestine. She’ll need at least two units before she can be ready for surgery.”

Potter nodded in understanding. “I’ll make sure she does.”

“And make sure B.J. works on her.”

“I will.”

And with that, Potter stepped inside leaving Hawkeye alone and still shaking. 

He wasn’t sure how he made it to the showers, but he did. The cold water was the shock to the system he needed. He strubbed the blood off of his hands and kept scrubbing until every part of his was sore for it. 

The rest of camp seemed to know to keep their distance, with only passing words of encouragement and sympathy thrown his way. But, even that was too much. 

Liz was in surgery and where was he? Sitting on his hands and trying not to think about it. 

He paced the camp more than once, not daring to allow himself near the O.R. or the Swamp. The O.R. would just make him long for a task. The Swamp would make him long for a drink, neither of which would help anyone. What if something went wrong? Unlikely, but in Korea anything could happen. He needed to keep his head on straight. 

Out of the haze he saw Klinger coming towards him. On any other occasion he would have made a comment about the little green number he was sporting, but he wasn’t in the mood. 

“Something wrong,” Hawkeye asked, immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusion in his head. 

Klinger shook his head. “Doc’s okay. Not great obviously, but they got her stable enough for surgery.”

“B.J.?”

“Working on her right now. You should have seen it. I thought he was finally going to snap Charles’ head off.”

That strangely brought Hawkeye some relief. Trust B.J. to be the protective sort when it really counted. Still he couldn’t shake the thought reverberated in his mind in an unending echo.

Liz is dying. She could die. And you’re doing nothing.

It wasn’t the first time death had crossed his mind. He had thought about the possibility of everyone in the camp dying, more than once. But there was a difference between thinking about it and seeing the evidence first hand. 

Even if Liz did make it through the surgery the memory of her bleeding body and voice rasping for life would haunt him for the rest of his days.

She needed to be okay. He needed to hear her voice again, her real one. He needed to see those big brown eyes of hers wide awake and shining. He couldn’t have the dead weight of her in his arms be his last memory of her. It would kill him. 

He blinked. It would kill him. When did that kind of thinking start? 

“Hawkeye?”

“Huh?”

“Doc’s going to be okay,” Klinger said. “B.J. won’t let anything happen to her.”

He nodded. Why was he having trouble talking? When was the last time he’d been this quiet?

“C’mon, let’s get you some coffee. I’m buying.”

“Thanks Klinger.” 

He followed him blindly into the mess tent. Everybody cleared the way for them and nobody made a comment when he sat down across from Klinger and stared blankly into his coffee. 

Why wasn’t he doing anything? Why couldn’t he do anything?

“Hawkeye?”

He looked up. Margaret was looking down at him. She had a bandage on her arm and suddenly the comment Potter made of her needing to be looked over came back to him. 

“You got hit,” he said.

She shrugged it off. “Just a graze. Doctor Winchester was able to stitch it up without much effort.”

There was an awkward silence. She didn’t move to sit and Hawkeye didn’t offer. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“It’s not your fault.” It came out automatically. He wasn’t sure what he felt about Margaret’s involvement. He just knew he didn’t want to hear any more reassurances or sympathies right now. It only made him feel useless. 

“Feels like it is,” Margaret said. “I was the one driving. I should have…I don’t know. Something. I should be doing something.”

A warm feeling came to his chest and he found himself appreciating Margaret Houlihan more than he ever had in his life. 

“That makes two of us.” 

She gave a small smile before taking a seat beside him. They sipped their coffee in silence, thinking about every possible thing they should be doing, but couldn’t. 

“She’s going to be alright,” Margaret said. It was more to assure herself than him, but even still the words rubbed him the wrong way. 

“Yeah,” he mumbled. 

Liz is dying. She could die. And you’re doing nothing.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. Klinger moved at some point. The sun got lower in the sky and the cook was starting to set things up for the next round. 

Margaret stayed beside him the entire time. This was probably the longest they had sat in silence together without either of them falling asleep. He didn’t think that was possible before. 

“Pierce.”

He whipped around to see Potter stepping into the mess tent, still in his scrubs.

Hawkeye leapt to his feet. “Liz?”

The man smiled. “She’s going to be alright. She’s in recovery right now. You’ll find the conversation rather one sided, but you’re free to visit, if you want.”

Relief washed over him. “Thanks Colonel.”

Without another word, he bolted. 

Nobody questioned why he was there. The second he burst through the door, he made a B-line to the center bed and the woman sleeping peacefully with IVs in her arms. 

Nurse Kellye stood at the end of her bed, checking her charts. 

“How is she?” Hawkeye asked. 

“Steady heart rate, blood pressure still low but stabilizing, and no signs of infection.” She handed him her charts. “Doctor Hunnicutt did a great job. She’s going to be okay.”

There were those words again. But, even as he looked over her charts and could see the color already returning to her cheeks, they felt wrong.

“Thanks Kellye,” he said, absentmindedly. 

She nodded, moving away from him to check on the other patient. 

Hawkeye let her, having little thought to the other people in the room beside Liz. He slipped into a seat beside her bed. The IV dripped down just as steadily as her breathing, a reminder of what had happened to her. 

“Hey Liz,” he said, his voice hoarse from lack of use. It had never happened to him before. He found it off putting and cleared his throat. “I heard B.J. fixed you up alright. Well, of course he did. Probably faster and prettier than Doctor Charles Emerson Winchester could dream of. You know, you had us worried there for a while.”

He took her hand and gave it a light squeeze. Nothing came back. He didn’t expect it too, but the absence of pressure still left an empty feeling in his gut. 

“Just know I’ll be around. So, give me a squeeze if you need something. Or don’t need something. I’m easy.” 

Silence followed, and Hawkeye didn’t move. 

He was in the same spot when B.J. came in almost six hours later. One hand clutching Liz’s charts like a preacher might a bible the other holding her hand just as reverently. 

“Any changes,” B.J. asked. 

That pulled Hawkeye out of his head, if only for a moment. “No. Everything is green.”

“Then don’t you think you oughta go to bed? She’s out of danger.” 

“Maybe.”

B.J. let out a sigh. He walked over to the other doctor and placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“C’mon Hawk, there’s nothing more you can do.”

“Like I actually did anything,” he mumbled, darkly. 

“Pierce. She’s okay.”

“No she’s not.” Bile rose in this throat. His fist tightened and all his anger and fear started bubbling to the surface.

“Liz is lying in a hospital bed unconscious in some nowhere spot in Korea surrounded by dysentery and bullets. And for what? For helping? For trying to do her job? For saving lives and that’s what she gets?” He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “It’s what Henry got. It’s what Tommy got. Only makes sense right? Why did she have to go out there?”

“Like you said, it’s her job.”

“Yeah, her job,” he dismissed. “She should be starting a practice safe and sound in Philadelphia. Instead she’s here. You know why?”

“No, why?”

“Because she’s an idiot. Because she’s so convinced she doesn’t have a chance back home, that she’s willing to risk her life here for just the opportunity to be the surgeon she’s trained to be. How stupid can you be?”

“Pretty stupid.”

“It’s worse than that! She’s brave too. Brave and stupid and selfless and beautiful; it’s a deadly combination, you know.” 

He didn’t know when he had gotten up, but he couldn’t stop pacing or talking. Everything he had wanted to say all day coming out in a flurry of words and curses. He shook his head. 

“Not me though. I’m smart and a coward. You wouldn’t catch me going out there unless I was forced to. And even if I was I’d be useless.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I froze. I wasn’t even under fire. I just saw her shot and bleeding and I couldn’t think. I just stood there.” He took a breath letting the truth of his words collapse on top of him as he finally said them outloud. 

“Liz was dying. She could have died. And I did nothing, hands shaking and useless.” He looked down, feeling the familiar warmth of tears coming down his face as he gave a hollow laugh. “My hands are still shaking. Why are my hands still shaking?”

“Pierce despite your insistence to the contrary, you’re not infallible,” B.J. said, calmly. “You think if Peg were shot, I’d be able to operate on her? Or what if you had gotten shot? Would you expect Liz to be the one to patch you up? You got scared. It happens.”

He shook his head. “But we can’t do that here. If I was out there with her instead of Margaret, I would have gotten us both killed. She would have died and it would have been my fault.” 

“But she’s not dead,” B.J. insisted. “She’s alive. You’re alive. If you keep dwelling on the what ifs it’s going to drive you crazy.” 

Hawkeye paused a moment, his throat tight as he tried to get some hold of himself. Finally he took a long shaky breath. 

“I can’t lose her Beej. Everyone has their limits and I think that’s mine. This place would finally tip me over the edge if I lost her.” The admission scared him, but he knew it was the truth. It has been the truth for a long time, so long he wasn’t even sure when it had started. 

“Does she know?” 

B.J. didn’t sound surprised by Hawkeye’s confession. But then again, B.J. had been convinced Hawkeye was in love with Liz the moment he met the pair of them. Maybe he hadn’t been that far off. 

“No.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

Hawkeye looked down at Doc’s still sleeping form, his heart clenching at the sight. “When she recovers. I don’t want her to think I’m proclaiming my love just because she almost died.”

“Aren’t you, though?”

“It’s a motivator for sure, but not the prime reason,” Hawkeye defended. 

B.J. gave him a half smile and Hawkeye caught himself returning it. 

“Get some rest,” B.J. insisted. “I’m on duty tonight. I’ll let you know if anything changes before tomorrow morning.” 

Hawkeye nodded. Before he left, he took Doc’s hand once more and gave it a tight squeeze as he kissed her forehead. 

For a second, he thought he felt a small bit of pressure in return. He squeezed again, but nothing happened. Brushing it off as his imagination, he pulled his hand away and slipped out the door. 

He would tell her, eventually. It was just a matter of timing.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! If you like this, check out my tumblr @ https://shenanigans-and-imagines.tumblr.com
> 
> Please leave a comment and kudos if you are so inclined.


End file.
